Brendan Rodgers explains why he sent on note for Scott Brown

STEPHEN HALLIDAY

Brendan Rodgers has explained why he sent out a note to Celtic captain Scott Brown during the Champions League play-off against Hapoel Beer-Sheva.

A place in the group stage was in serious danger of slipping through Celtic’s fingers in Israel when they trailed 2-0 just three minutes into the second half and were rocking badly.

A couple of tactical changes by Rodgers eventually steadied the ship, including the introduction of Erik Sviatchenko in a switch to a back five for the closing stages. The Danish defender also passed a note from Rodgers to Brown.

“It said: ‘Any danger?’,” joked Rodgers when asked what instructions he had relayed to Brown.

“Seriously, it was just to make sure they understood the shape we were changing to. If you leave the message with a player, sometimes it doesn’t get on quick enough.

“Scott’s a great communicator, so Erik gave it to him and he could see the shape of the team and what personnel had to go to what positions and what we were trying to achieve.

“Rip it up quickly and go. I’ve done it in the past. It’s not a book! You have to be short, sharp and concise with your information.

“Listen, the quality of your life is down to the quality of your communication skills. However you get it on there, however it is written, whether it is verbal, you need to get the message on there.

“I thought we then found a calmness. The issue was that they were throwing caution to the wind and bombing everyone forward.

“The problem was on the sides. Initially, they had a diamond in the first-half, but the tempo was up for them and we could contain that, so we switched from 4-3-3 to a diamond at the beginning of the half.

“But they were still getting down the sides, so it was a case then of trying to block them. Stick an extra defender on meaning Kieran Tierney and Saidy Janko could engage their full-backs higher up the pitch. Then we started to deal with things.”